Businesses today are focused on building digital communities and workspaces. With the right network platform, your business can create strong networking relationships, improving employee communication and engagement through a single platform.
With so many different social platforms available, it can be confusing knowing where to start to build and maintain your network. In this guide, we’ll cover what a network platform for your business should look like, and how you can manage yours to achieve a greater outcome.
What is a Network Platform?
Before diving into how to manage a network platform for your business, let’s understand exactly what online networking is.
Online networking follows the same idea as offline networking – which is networking at meetups and events to develop your professional connections. Today, online networking forms an essential part of managing professional relationships.
Even if you create a professional connection in-person, that relationship will usually be carried out and built up online.
There are many social networking sites and channels available, but professional networking is done on a built-for-purpose platform for business networking.
The major advantage of using online networking platforms for business is that they allow you to connect with anyone else in the community, around the globe at the click of a button. Unlike in-person networking events, which are limited by the number of attendees, online community networking opens up the possibility of your business network to the world.
The right networking platform allows you to find relevant connections, add them to your groups, and develop strategic relations with them.
There are many different community platforms out there, each with its own unique functionalities. However, the basic idea between all of them is that they are a place to create, develop, and manage your professional relationships.
Unlike in-person networking opportunities, a network platform also allows you to reach out and communicate with your connections at any time. This means that you can build up a far more engaged business community network.
A business community network platform is used by professionals to connect with others and maintain strong business networks.
These platforms are also used by businesses to develop their own strategic networks, improve internal communications with employees, and strengthen company productivity.
What Should Business Community Networking Platforms Include?
Networking platforms are not the same as social media platforms. Social media platforms can be used for communication, or “light” networking, but they aren’t designed to create and support long-term professional relationships.
A business community networking platform should offer a variety of features beyond just creating online communities and developing relationships.
Here are some important features that you can find on networking platforms:
Communication tools
In order to engage with communities, different networking platforms have different tools, such as messaging platforms, content publishing tools, discussion platforms, and more.
Some business networking platforms have restrictions on which communities can engage with each other.
Onboarding tools
Businesses can use their network platform to help onboard new staff and help them familiarize themselves with their new role.
Alumni networks
A network platform can also be used to create long-term relationships with former employees. Corporate alumni networks allow businesses to attract talent, discover new business opportunities, and encourage brand advocacy.
Events
To share business events and confirm event attendance
Insights
Businesses can use their network platform to gain data insights into their members and communities
How to Manage a Network Platform for Your Business
If your business is using a new platform for networking with people, there are various ways that it can utilize the platform to build a thriving professional community.
Here are some important functions for managing and using a network platform for your business.
Enable Professional Growth
A business community networking web platform can be used by staff to share and discover opportunities for professional growth.
Businesses should use these platforms to highlight progression opportunities within the organization.
You can use your network platform to connect with staff, engage with them, and reveal insights from your business. This way, you can use a single platform to manage all of the growth opportunities within your organization.
Enable Easy Networking
A community platform should be used to simplify professional networking and reveal new networking opportunities (within the established network).
Your business can use this to enable meaningful relationships and make it easier for employees to share knowledge and connect with each other inside the community.
By using a single platform that makes networking easier, you can also improve collaborative working.
With easy networking opportunities, employees can connect with the right people when they need to, without wasting any time. This can result in increased productivity and innovation opportunities.
Readily available networking is also good for employee well-being – especially in today’s world of remote work.
Strengthen Your Brand
Platforms for networking online are great for creating and building relationships, but these platforms can also be used to improve brand awareness and perception.
With engaged alumni networks, businesses can encourage brand advocacy. Basically, you can have more people connected with your business talking about your brand, sharing events and news, and adding to your broader network.
With strong network relationships developed from the start, brands can maintain these relationships over the long term. This can apply even after a staff member finds a new employment opportunity.
Corporate alumni engagement is something many businesses overlook. By using the right platform, this alumni engagement can add great value to your business.
Share Valuable Content
Your network platform doesn’t only have to focus on building and maintaining relationships. The platform can also be used to share valuable content with your network.
This could be through providing relevant content to your internal network for processes like training, or you could share important content with your broader network. Things like events, business news, and social media updates can be shared.
This means you can use your corporate network platform to create more trust around your business, provide helpful resources, and develop a more engaged community.
Create Staff Groups
Your business can use its network platform to create staff groups. These groups can be based on factors like region, department, interest, location, and more.
With staff groups, you can provide a useful place for discussions, content distribution, membership connections, sharing relevant opportunities, and more.
Instead of just focusing on one large network, you can use groups to break up your business network for customized, personalized spaces and experiences.
Share Internal Opportunities
Your network platform is also an ideal place to share internal opportunities with your staff.
Use a single platform to share job opportunities, encourage staff to access these opportunities, and collaborate on them. This is a great way to improve internal progression.
Conclusion
Networking and community are important for career growth and business development. As a business owner, you want to be able to build a strong network to improve communication, collaboration, and professional networking and growth opportunities.
With a platform like Aluminati, businesses can easily create strategic, engaged networks.
Aluminati gives you all the tools you need for network interaction, sharing content, and managing the administrative side of your business community network.
Request a demo today to see what Aluminati can do for your business.
